War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel (43 page)

The image changed, showing angular shapes beneath the treetops, spread in neat lines. Large vehicles were parked under there, including several that sprouted long barrel-shaped noses. Though the view was fuzzy, Tucker knew what he was seeing. He pictured the Soviet hardware outside the derelict town at White Sands: infantry fighting vehicles and T-55 medium tanks. Beyond those neat rows were other shadowy images. He could guess what those were, too.

D-30 artillery pieces . . . same as at White Sands
.

Tucker’s heart began pounding in his throat.

All the hidden vehicles and armament were facing north toward Serbia.

“How much you wanna bet those tanks are covered in Montenegrin army emblems?” Frank asked.

Tucker didn’t want to take that bet any more than the one earlier. “They must be planning a false-flag invasion. Like the Gleiwitz incident.”

“What?” Frank asked, his voice edgy.

“At the start of World War II, Nazi commandos donned the uniforms of Polish soldiers and attacked the German town of Gleiwitz. Hitler used that fabricated aggression to justify his invasion of Poland.”

“You think the same’s about to happen here?”

“Maybe.”

He pictured the little hamlets strewn across this side of the valley. If Kellerman razed these villages, made it look like an act of aggression by Montenegrin forces, it would give the Serbian government the excuse it needed to invade.

Tucker peered out the window toward Montenegro, certainty growing inside him. Kellerman didn’t just want the land under this town. The bastard had far greater ambitions.

“The question is,
when
does it all begin?” Tucker mumbled.

The answer came with a distant boom. A puff of smoke rose from the tree line miles to the south—then a breath later, a hillside exploded two hundred yards south of the village. Chunks of shattered trees and earth erupted in a geyser. A shudder rippled through the earth.

Tucker jumped to his feet.

It’s started . . .

33

October 27, 12:01
P
.
M
. CET

Kamena Gora, Serbia

Tucker burst out the door of the restaurant and onto the street. Another boom shook the ground. A moment later, an artillery shell screamed past overhead and hit the mountain slope above the village. Trees shattered and boulders rained down, crashing through the red-tiled roofs of the upper village.

From a tiny school across the square, a stream of children and a teacher came rushing out amid panicked shouts and crying.

The Yeti’s engine growled from where it was parked and leaped into reverse, then jackknifed toward him, driven by Jane.

Frank pushed up behind Tucker, along with Josif and his two sons, who chattered angrily in Serbian.

“What do we do?” Frank shouted.

Jane skidded the vehicle alongside him. Nora popped the door open as Jane yelled, “Get inside!”

Kane barked, as if urging the same, his ears pressed back on his skull as another shell exploded to the west, striking a building and sending smoke and debris sailing high into the air.

Frank stepped around to obey, but Tucker stared across the square, now milling with older men, women, and more children. Most of the town’s able-bodied men must have been sucked up into the neighboring mines.

Tucker grabbed Frank’s shoulder. “We . . . we can’t just leave these people to be slaughtered.”

Frank’s eyes were wide with panic, but he winced and nodded. “What can we do?”

Tucker pictured the destruction of the desert town at White Sands—and how they had survived. He turned to Josif and pointed to his toes. “Do you have cellars, caves, anything underground?”

The old man must have seen his fair share of hard times, and rather than being panicked, he looked angry and determined. “
Da
. Many root cellars. Also caves.” He waved toward the west side of the village.

Tucker stared the man hard in the eyes. “Show me those caves. Get your boys moving everyone into cellars or over to those caves.”

Josif nodded and spoke rapidly to his sons.

“Tuck!” Jane called to him.

He stepped to the open door, glancing across the chaos in the square. Most of the children stayed with their teacher, huddling around her, grasping her skirt and sobbing. A scatter of other children fled down nearby paths and streets.

“Jane, I’m going to help get these children to some caves at the west side of the village. Take the Yeti and collect as many other pe—”

Another artillery round whooshed overhead and crashed into a home on the opposite side of the square. Cedar shingles and white bricks exploded outward, zinging across the open space and peppering the fountain. The statue of the soldier teetered sideways and crashed into the fountain’s basin. To his right, a boy of ten or eleven flew through the smoke, then crashed across the ground, his body shredded by shrapnel.

Frank started heading that way, but Tucker grabbed his arm.

The boy was already dead.

Josif waved for Tucker to follow. His sons spread out, grabbing younger children and swinging them up into their strong arms, while herding older children ahead of them.

“Zuri, zuri!”
the pair shouted, urging their charges to move faster.

Tucker turned to Jane. “Circle the town! Stuff as many people in with you as you can and meet us on the west side!”

She looked scared but nodded.

“Kane, to me,” he said.

The shepherd leaped to his side.

As the SUV whipped around to make a pass through the village, he and Frank followed Josif and his two sons. Tucker grabbed a young girl hiding behind a bench.

Frank waved his arms, parroting the two brothers.
“Zuri, zuri!”

Upon Tucker’s signal, Kane ran back and forth, barking to get any stunned stragglers to move. Tucker pulled out his satellite phone and tried to raise Ruth, but he could find no signal.

Frank noted his effort. “Bastards must be jamming this region, like back in Trinidad, blocking outgoing satellite, cell, and landline.”

“What about Rex?”

Frank checked the CUCS unit. “Still connected. Makes sense. They’d have to keep local transmissions and frequencies open in order to control the drones.”

Another thunderous blast echoed from the southwest. A plume of orange rose into the sky past the shoulder of the neighboring mountain.

Frank looked aghast. “They’ve begun shelling the other villages.”

As Tucker continued through the town, he caught glimpses of the southern border. A pall of smoke hung there, marking the location of the artillery guns and tanks.

He could guess the enemy’s strategy.

They’re softening up these places before the tanks start rolling
.

Afterward, there would be survivors, along with footage of bombed-out homes, of Montenegrin tanks grinding along village streets, and of bodies, too many of them children.

“How can they do this?” Frank gasped out.

Tucker didn’t care. He had only one purpose glowing behind his eyes.

To stop them before those tanks got here
.

Frank dashed down a side street and helped a pregnant woman cradling her stomach who struggled toward them. He rejoined Tucker, with an arm around the woman’s waist.

After an interminable slog, they finally neared the village outskirts. Far up ahead, one of the brothers waved to Tucker and pointed down a side street, directing the parade of refugees that way.

Tucker needed no encouragement to keep moving.

Another bomb struck the square behind them all, casting up smoke and fire. The blast wave pushed them forward. The artillery barrage was in full swing now, moving back and forth across the valley, sending up plumes of flame and debris. Smoke filled the air, the stench of it thick in Tucker’s nostrils. Shouts and the cries of frightened children echoed throughout the quickly emptying streets. Dozens of people now followed behind Tucker, while others sprinted past.

A honk drew his attention to the right. The Yeti came hurtling down a steep street from one of the upper tiers of the village. The vehicle barely fit down the narrow path. Through the windshield, now obscured by a skitter of cracks, Jane wore a hard, fixed expression. He remembered it from Afghanistan, Jane in battle mode.

Relieved to see her, he let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

She reached the stream of villagers and rode alongside Tucker. She had the Yeti packed from stem to stern with people sprawled on top of each other. She even had a young boy of two or three balanced on her knee, clutching him with one arm as if he were her own son.

With her window rolled down, she spoke while driving alongside him. “I got as many as I could, but it’s hell up there. Did you see the explosions in the distance?”

He nodded. From the worry in her eyes, she clearly knew the implication, too.

Tucker and his group reached the edge of the village and turned north, where one of Josif’s sons stood beside a set of double doors that opened into a chunk of hillside. He was cajoling and shoving people through the entrance.

Jane explained, noting his attention, “I learned from a passenger that the caves on this side of town are used as a communal root cellar. They burrow deep into the mountain for a ways. Should offer some protection.”

He hoped so.

As they reached the entrance, Jane unloaded the Yeti and passed the young boy in her lap to an old woman who seemed to recognize the lad. Still, Jane stared after the boy as he was carried through the doors, her face a mask of concern, plainly thinking of her own child.

With Frank and Nora’s help, Tucker got the remaining refugees below, then climbed down the steps into the cavern cellars.

The doors were closed behind them, sealing them all inside.

12:19
P
.
M
.

At the bottom of the cellar stairs, kerosene lanterns had been lit. The yellow glow flickered off worried faces and huddled bodies. A low babbling and murmuring echoed from deeper inside the labyrinth.

Outside, shells continued to slam into the earth, sending shockwaves under their feet. Dirt trickled from the ceiling. Tucker could feel each
thwump
in his belly.

“We got to do something,” Frank mumbled to him.

Tucker took a deep breath to collect himself. But deep in the back of his skull, old anxieties stirred, making it hard to think. He found the others’ eyes upon him.

Then Kane was there, leaning against him, sensing he needed the support. Those dark eyes stared up at him, warmly reflecting the lamplight. The shepherd’s body trembled slightly against his thigh. Being underground after being almost buried alive had left the dog unnerved, and rightly so.

Still, Kane stuck by him, ever loyal.

Tucker took strength from his companion and turned to Frank. “Is Rex still in the air?”

Frank pulled out the CUCS unit from his pocket. “I left him hovering in silent mode when I spotted all that military equipment. But he’s running low on juice.”

Frank showed the screen to Nora, who still looked shell-shocked but seemed relieved to have something to distract her. “I’d say Rex has fifty, maybe sixty minutes of charge left.”

“Were you guys able to get that final triangulation on the central command hub?”

Frank winced, plainly having forgotten about this detail in the rush of events. “Let me see.” He worked for a few breaths with Nora at his side. “I . . . I think we got it.”

“You think or you do?”

Nora explained the hesitation. “We never instructed Rex to perform this last reading, but he must’ve done it on his own.”

On his own?

“Sandy’s amazing . . .” Nora muttered, smiling softly.

Frank nodded. “I think Rex is
learning
. He performed the task under his own volition, perhaps sensing what was needed from the earlier hops, recording the information in case we wanted it.”

“Which we do.” Tucker faced Jane. “Do you still have the map of Skaxis?”

She nodded and pulled out the folded topographic map. “What’s the coordinate for the C3 hub?”

As the three of them worked together, spreading the map on one of the earthen walls, someone touched his arm. He turned to find Bozena standing with Josif.

The old man gave a stiff but polite bow of his head. “
Hvala vam
.”

“Thank you,” Bozena said, both translating and adding her own appreciation of their efforts.

Don’t thank us yet
.

Bozena, her face a mask of fear, clearly recognized the ongoing danger. She cringed as another blast shook the ground. No one was safe yet—especially if those tanks started rolling.

Tucker faced Bozena and Josif. “We need your help.” He glanced to the old man’s two sons. “Someone who knows Skaxis Mining well.”

Josif scowled at that name again. “
Zašto
?”

“Why?” Bozena asked, her expression confused.

Tucker didn’t have time to explain and feared something would be lost in the translation anyway. “With enough help, I might be able to stop this.”

Plainly suspicious, Josif turned and spoke with Bozena, who seemed to offer some reassurance to the old man, waving a hand at Tucker’s group, then at the people huddled in the caves.

Finally, Josif sighed and waved one of his boys over. “My son Pravi. He know mines.”

Tucker drew Pravi over to the map. “Show him where Rex seems to think the C3 hub is located.”

Frank pointed to a spot on the map on the far side of the complex, in what appeared to be a remote corner, away from the attention of the main mining facility.

Tucker faced Pravi. “Do you know where that is?”

The tall young man leaned closer, swiping some blond hair from his eyes, then straightened. “
Manstir, da
.” He bobbed his head but questioned them. “
Zašto
?”

“Can you get us there?”